Yesterday the school confirmed what we had feared - The government in our province will no longer convert tourist (L) visas into working (Z) visas. If we had been trying to do this a few months ago there would have been no problem but now… well, life is not so simple. The school has contacted the police to see if they can bend the rules a bit (given the circumstances) and we are still waiting for their response. The only other option is to leave the country and re-enter on a Z visa - in our case we would have to go to Hong Kong. This needn”t be a major issue (it could be a nice holiday) but, until we know whether the school is willing to pay some (or all) of the expenses, we can”t really make a decision. Nevertheless, we are still going to Shanghai for a week so that’’s all good. We leave on Friday evening. We have had our current visas extended so we are all cool until late October.

Last night we went to one of the teacher’’s apartments for dinner. We met her mum and little boy and generally had a great time. Her son found my hairy legs particularly amusing. We were also able to test-drive our bikes again, this time at night. Despite probably being quite dangerous, there remains something quite relaxing about cycling around China at night.

Anyhow, while we are a bit sad about the visas and our impending expulsion from the country, we are looking forward to our Shanghai break. We are also hoping that the school will be able to help us negotiate a solution to our visa problem.

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